Against Me!

Did You Know?

• Grace built a recording studio in Elkton, Florida, in September 2011, later named Total Treble Studio; the first band to record there was Cheap Girls for their album Giant Orange.
• Warren Oakes left the band in June 2009 partly to focus on running his Mexican food restaurant, which already carried guitarist James Bowman's homemade hot sauce on the menu.
• The band's 2008 tour bus hit a patch of ice on I-80 en route to Salt Lake City, causing it to spin and land on its side; no one was harmed.

History

Against Me! started in 1997 when Laura Jane Grace, on guitar and vocals, turned it into a solo project after her earlier band fell apart. That same year, she put out a self-titled demo tape, releasing it herself in tiny numbers. Drummer Kevin Mahon came on board for a second demo, Vivida Vis!, which Misanthrope Records put out in 1998 with a limited run. The band hit the road for their first tour in March 1999, a month-long trek up and down the East coast, where they met Jordan Kleeman in Baltimore. Their first EP, also called Against Me!, came out twice through Crasshole Records, once in 1999 and again in 2000. Grace's longtime friend James Bowman joined for a West coast tour backing that EP, riding in Grace's 1976 Buick LeSabre, which blew its engine right after the tour ended. The EP Crime as Forgiven by Against Me! arrived in 2001 via Plan-It-X Records and Sabot Productions, run by Kleeman, and became their first release to get wide distribution. Neither Bowman nor Dustin Fridkin played on that record, but both joined the band for tour support. On April 23, 2001, heading south on I-75 after their first tour as a four-piece, a semi truck hit their van. It flipped upside-down in a ditch. No one got hurt, but the van and gear were totaled, and Bowman and Mahon left the band afterward. Against Me! broke up for a few months that year. In November 2001, Grace and bassist Dustin Fridkin put out a third EP, a self-titled acoustic set. Mahon's spot was taken by Warren Oakes, and Bowman returned in December 2001 during the recording of the first album, Against Me! Is Reinventing Axl Rose, which No Idea Records released in March 2002. Fridkin left in summer 2002 to go back to college, and Andrew Seward from the Tennessee band kill devil hills replaced him. This lineup put out the single "The Disco Before the Breakdown" in 2002 and stayed together until 2009.